Tiger's Dream (Tiger's Curse Book 5)

by Colleen Houck

  Invisible, I eavesdropped on their conversation on the yacht right after Ren regained his memory and thrilled for a brief moment when Kelsey said she was going to stay with me. But fast-forwarding a bit, I came upon them locked in a very intimate embrace in his cabin, at a time when, supposedly, she was with me. As I gripped the amulet, the scene disappeared. Anguish tore from my lips as I spun in a whirlwind, not knowing where I should go next or what I was really trying to accomplish.

  My mind settled a bit, and I decided that what would comfort me the most, and help me to understand Kelsey’s feelings for me, was to relive the moments when I felt her love. A smile came to my face when I watched our ice cream fight and relived moments in Shangri-La that probably meant more to me than they did to her. She seemed comfortable holding my hand as we walked through the jungle and held on to me tightly when I carried her after she sprained her ankle trying to rescue Ren.

  When I got to the day I proposed, I frowned, seeing that she was distracted. It took studying the scene from several different angles, and finally disguising myself as a beach goer lying out on the sand, before I realized that she was distracted by Ren. As my past self was struggling with what to say and how to sound romantic, all Ren had to do was walk out of the water and every female within a mile was lusting after him, including my soon-to-be fiancée.

  Ren froze when he saw me offer Kelsey the ring, and then he shot off up the hill like a bolt of lightning, changing to a tiger as soon as the bushes gave him some cover. Even then, at that time, I’d had an inkling that something was wrong. That Kelsey seemed almost sad as she accepted the proposal. I shrugged off the disappointment I felt. The fact was, she did become my fiancée. Even though she knew Ren saw everything, she’d made a commitment to me, and it was obvious by watching the two of us together that she did have feelings for me.

  Leaving the beach, I time jumped back to our date on the yacht. From the shadows I watched our kiss again and again.

  “You must have been so lonely,” Kelsey said as I watched the scene for the tenth time.

  “I was,” the other me responded. “I’d been alone for so long I felt like I was the last man on Earth. Then when I saw you, it was like a dream. You were an angel who’d come at last to rescue me from my miserable existence.”

  I still felt that way. The curse was broken for Ren but not for me. I was still stuck in a miserable existence, and this one girl was the only person in the universe who could bring it to an end. I folded my arms and leaned against a post, moving my lips to the words I’d long since memorized.

  “I wanted you, and I didn’t care who I hurt or how it made you feel. I was angry when you asked me to back off. I wanted you to want me in the same way, and you didn’t. I wanted you to feel the same way about me that you felt about Ren, but you couldn’t.”

  “But, Kishan—”

  “Wait . . . let me finish.

  “Maybe it’s what that idiot bird did to me in Shangri-La, but I’ve been able to see more clearly since then—not only about my past and about Yesubai but also about you, about my future. I knew that I wouldn’t be alone forever. I saw that in the Grove of Dreams.”

  I reflected for a moment on the visions given to me in the Grove of Dreams. Perhaps it had been pride that motivated me to hide the knowledge that Kelsey’s baby had my eyes. That sweet little babe with golden eyes being cradled by his beautiful mother was an image that haunted my every waking moment.

  She’d named him Anik. That much I’d told her, but what I didn’t share was that his middle name was Kishan. Anik Kishan Rajaram, my golden-eyed son. Maybe if I had told her what I knew, she would have felt differently. Our relationship might have been easier. Ren less of an influence. But my ego got in the way. I wanted her to choose me because she loved me, not because of a vision.

  Stupid! What difference would it have made? Kelsey made a decision without having all the cards on the table. How could I expect her to stay when she didn’t know what I knew? I turned my attention back to the scene playing out in the candlelight.

  I saw the Kishan below touch Kelsey’s lips. If I closed my eyes, I could still feel the velvety-smooth texture of them on my fingertips.

  “I wasn’t really ready to be in a relationship then. I didn’t have anything to give, anything to offer. Not to a woman of this time. But Shangri-La gave me something more valuable than six more hours a day as a man. It gave me hope. A reason to believe. So I waited. I learned how to be patient. I learned how to live in this century. And now . . . most importantly, I think I’ve finally learned what it means to love someone.”

  My old self had at least a drop of common sense. He, or I, had been patient, and that patience had paid off. Perhaps if I could gather a bit more patience, things might end up okay. There was still time. Loads of it, actually. There was no reason a wedding had to happen. I could stop it before it went too far.

  I heard a squeak as Ren stepped into view. He crouched on the deck just below mine and watched the couple below with the same fascination and attention I’d been giving. His fingers tightened on the deck chair next to him.

  The old Kishan said, “So I suppose the only question remaining, Kelsey, is . . . are my feelings echoed in your heart? Do you feel even a small part of what I feel for you? Is there a piece of you that you can reserve for me? That I can name mine? That I can lay claim to and keep forever? I promise you that I will cherish it. And I will guard it jealously all of my days. Does your heart beat for me at all, love?”

  After a brief moment, Kelsey responded, “Of course it does. I won’t let you be alone ever again. I love you too, Kishan.”

  I watched the kiss, remembering the power and passion of it, and was jealous of my old self for having that experience at that moment. Kelsey’s words echoed in my mind. A piece of her belonged to me and always would. I knew that to be true. As Ren lost his mind, threw a deck chair, and general chaos ensued, I quietly murmured the words of Kelsey’s promise into the dark, balmy air. “I won’t be alone.”

  “Of course you’re not alone,” a scoffing female voice declared behind me.

  Chapter 6

  Capture

  Spinning at the sound behind me, I found a smirking Anamika. My instinct was to grab her arm, but seeing the look she gave me made me pause, and I caught myself just in time.

  “What are you doing here?” I hissed.

  She shrugged. “You’ve been gone for a while.”

  I was about to say I’d return the next morning and it didn’t really matter how long I was gone, but obviously I hadn’t returned or she wouldn’t be here now. The fluctuations in the timeline gave me a headache. Instead I asked, “How long was I gone?”

  “Two weeks. How long have you been here observing yourself fawning over Kelsey?”

  “None of your business.”

  She took a step closer and gazed at the scene below. As she passed me, the soft jasmine scent of her skin and hair swept over me. Her presence made me angry and the fact that I liked her scent made me angrier.

  “How did you get here anyway?” I whispered.

  “Shh.” She held up her hand.

  “Are you . . . all right?” the old me asked Ren.

  “I am now.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “The veil of concealment was lifted.”

  “A veil? What veil?”

  Ren said, “The veil in my mind. The one Durga put there.”

  I glanced at Anamika, who regarded the scene with a raised eyebrow and a shrewd analytical gaze.

  “I remember now,” Ren said. “I remember everything.”

  Uncomfortable, I wanted to escape and gave Anamika a series of meaningful sighs and glances, but she ignored me and studied Ren below.

  When Ren begged softly, “Don’t go, iadala. Stay with me,” Anamika wiped a tear from her eye and finally turned to me with an irritated expression. She clamped her hand down on my wrist, and though I could have shrugged off her grip easily, I followed along behind
her as she made her way to a distant and quiet part of the ship.

  When she realized the back of the ship was not attached to land, she panicked briefly but then locked her long legs and took hold of the railing. Without a word, she grasped the twisted leather belt at her waist, and with a flick of the wrist and a soft crack, the Rope of Fire soared into the night sky. Soon a passageway opened and her expression indicated that she wanted me to jump through. Resigning myself to being Durga’s obedient little pet tiger, at least for the moment, I leapt off the upper level of the yacht and entered the time stream.

  Remaining conscious through the leap, a perk of being Durga’s immortal lackey, I landed lightly on my feet in the grass patch of Durga’s mountain home garden and turned to watch the fire gate for Anamika’s arrival.

  It worried me when it seemed she was more than just a few steps behind me, and I was just about to leap back through and find her when the ring of fire suddenly closed with a pop. I paced back and forth, wondering where she could have gone and what happened to her. Then, a few seconds later, another ring opened. Just as I turned toward it, her body fell through the encircling flames. I caught her, but the force with which she exited the ring of fire was enough to send me tumbling.

  We rolled a few times, and I clutched her body close to mine in an attempt to protect her from getting hurt. Taking the worst of the fall on my back, we came to a stop with her back pressed into the grass, her beautiful hair spread out all around her, and me on top of her. Before I got a chance to move or even really appreciate the position we’d landed in, she began to squirm and buck. My saving gesture was met with anger rather than gratitude.

  “Get off me, you brute!” she hollered and pushed at my shoulders. “You weigh more than a battle elephant!”

  Her ingratitude annoyed me, especially since I could still feel the gravel from the nearby path imbedded in my back along with the trickles of blood that accompanied it. “Calm down, Goddess. If you will be still, I will remove my ungainly elephantine form from your immediate vicinity.”

  Anamika quieted but glared at me hostilely, and when I moved, slower than I would have normally because her reaction set me off, she immediately scrambled away from me, scooted back against the fountain, and began trembling.

  Her fear was so strong I could taste its heaviness on the wind. “Ana,” I began, gentling my voice, “what just happened? What is it that frightens you so?”

  Wide green eyes met mine and darted away in shame. “I cannot speak of it, Kishan. I…I apologize for my reaction. I just had to go back. I had to see it again.”

  Taking a few steps closer, I crouched at a distance close enough for an intimate conversation yet far enough away to give her some space. “Go back where? When? What did you see?”

  She shook her head and let her hair fall around her body like a curtain, but not before I saw the fresh bruise on her cheek. It looked identical to the bruise I’d seen in the cave in Kishkindha. I knew our fall couldn’t cause a bruise like that. Only one thing could—a man’s fist. Hesitantly, I asked, “Did someone… Did a man hurt you?”

  Swallowing, she wrapped her hands around her knees and buried her face. She rocked back and forth and whispered as tears leaked down her cheeks, “It was a long time ago. I thought if I could help, things would be different.”

  “So, you tried to offer someone assistance?” I asked, trying to get her to talk, but again she shook her head.

  Then, with a tremulous voice, she admitted, “I tried to help a young girl escape from the clutches of a monster. But I froze. Instead of coming to her aid, I made it worse.”

  “Anamika, please tell me what happened. Were you serving a king? An acolyte?” The word monster conjured the image of just one person in my mind—Lokesh. “Did you go back to the fight with Lokesh? Is Kelsey the one you were helping?”

  Her shoulders stiffened and her head shot up. “Kelsey? Is that all you ever think about? Saving Kelsey? Finding Kelsey? Mourning Kelsey? Loving Kelsey? There are more people in the world who need saving than just Kelsey!”

  She turned her back to me and brushed tears angrily from her eyes. I didn’t know what to do, what to say. I opened my thoughts to her and gently spoke to her mind. Ana, I am sorry. Please tell me what happened.

  Red, pounding pain filled her mind, and before she shut her thoughts to me, I caught glimpses of a shadowed man towering over her, his grin full of wicked delight. She screamed and kicked against him as he brutally shoved her against a wall. There was a wide-eyed little girl on the bed behind him, her hands pressed against her face as she cried. Then her vision went white.

  A burning fire rose in me, deeper than anything I’d ever felt. My hands involuntarily tightened into fists, and I tried to control the rage enough to speak in a normal, calm voice, but still, my anger managed to seep through.

  “Who?” I managed to get out. “Who hit you?”

  This only made her cry anew. I inched closer and said, “Ana, I’m going to pick you up and take you inside. Is that okay?”

  She didn’t nod but didn’t protest either, so, slowly, as if I were carrying a newborn, I slipped my arms under her knees and behind her back. Carefully, I lifted her, and the heaviness and guilt I felt eased somewhat when she buried her head against my chest.

  Opening our connection and letting her have full access to everything I was and everything I felt without asking for the same from her, I spoke in her mind and assured her that I would never hurt her in that way. The anger that raged through me over whomever had done this to her consumed me to the point where I forgot all my own worries and concerns.

  Pressing a kiss in her hair, I strode down the hall and felt her relax against me. I sensed my open connection helped her to trust me or, if not me, then my intentions. Cursing myself for closing myself off from her and knowing that I had not kept my promise to her brother to take care of her, I berated myself as I gingerly placed her on her bed and turned to the wash basin to fetch a wet cloth.

  As I wiped the tears from her face, she said, “He didn’t know.”

  I paused. “Who didn’t know?”

  “My brother. I never told him what happened…to the girl.”

  A thousand questions rose in my mind. I had assumed that this man who hurt her had done it on her recent trip, which would explain the bruise, but if her brother had been near, then it must have occurred in her past. I pondered the images I’d seen, but couldn’t make sense of them.

  “Kadam was right,” she said. “I could not save her from the monster.”

  “What you did was dangerous, Ana. You could have crossed paths with your former self in the past.”

  “I thought I could change it,” Anamika whispered.

  Instinctively knowing that she didn’t want to be alone and also that she wasn’t ready to talk about it, I tucked the blankets around her and picked up her hand.

  “I’m going to massage your hand. If, at any point, it makes you feel uncomfortable, let me know and I will stop.”

  Anamika didn’t say anything but didn’t pull her hand from my grasp either. I began with her knuckles and moved to her palm.

  “You did this…this rubbing of the fingers for Kelsey?” she asked.

  “I did.”

  “It feels…nice.”

  “Good.”

  “I am embarrassed for my behavior when you caught me in the garden. I ask for your forgiveness.”

  I looked up and was caught for a moment in her wide green eyes. “There is nothing to forgive, Goddess.”

  “Knowing this about my past…I do not wish for you to see me as a weakling. I have dealt with men often since that time and have done so successfully, but when I am near you, I find it difficult to—”

  “To?”

  “To remain at a distance. My emotions lie closer to the surface when I am near you. Perhaps this is because of our connection.”

  “Perhaps.”

  I slid my fingers up to her wrist and found her skin so incredibly soft tha
t I had to give myself a mental shake to refocus.

  “I’m sorry for shutting myself off from you, especially when you needed me,” I said.

  “I have no need of a man. A tiger, perhaps, but not a man. At least not like your Kelsey does.”

  Frowning, I asked, “Then why were you interested in Ren?”

  “Dhiren did not press me as other men do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He did not expect me to…fawn over him.”

  “Fawn over?”

  Anamika sighed in frustration. “Yes, fawn over. Like when Kelsey held your hand or touched you or”—she swallowed visibly and licked her lips—“kissed you.”

  “You are speaking of a physical relationship.”

  “Yes. Dhiren did not expect this from me.”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “You can be sure he expected it from Kelsey.”

  “Why must men demand this? Isn’t it enough to have a strong woman at your side? One who will stand at your back and fight alongside you?”

  “A man can ask as much of a trusted warrior. But a life’s companion must be more than that. Good men don’t make demands or hurt the women they love, Anamika. But touching is a normal, natural desire between a man and a woman.”

  “And Kelsey enjoyed this touching and kissing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you”—she struggled with the word—“massage the rest of her body?”

  I wasn’t quite sure what she meant and didn’t want to say the wrong thing, so I answered as straightforwardly as I could.

  “I massaged Kelsey’s arms, feet, shoulders, and head, though I can also do a leg or back massage. If you are referring to more intimate touching, then no, I did not.”

  After taking a few moments to consider this information, Anamika said, “You may massage my feet if you wish.”

  Hiding my smile, I moved to her feet and was delighted to see her close her eyes and relax against her pillow. She was asleep by the time I finished her other hand, and instead of heading to my room or out to the garden as I normally did, I slipped outside her room and slept as a tiger, jamming my large body up against the closed door.